A Tale of Two Bands at SXSW

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Grooms at SXSW 2011

When I meet up with Travis Johnson from Grooms, he’s talking with his mom, Susie, outside the Palm Door where he’s about to play. Susie lives in Dallas and had some business at SXSW, so she came out to see him. Travis is flustered from having to drive into Austin in heavy traffic and find a parking spot, but he doesn’t show it. It takes a few hours of hanging out with him to be able to get a read on what he’s thinking.
Like Weekend, Grooms is also a trio, with Travis singing and playing guitar, Emily Ambruso on bass and vocals and Jim Sykes on drums. Onstage they are at once explosive and introspective, a little shy but not afraid to make a racket. While executing his complex guitar riffs, Travis often springs up onto his toes, falls backward away from the mic or lifts his guitar over his head. The band seamlessly moves from guitar-picked grooves to cathartic crashes to sweetly soft soundscapes, all in a matter of minutes.
Grooms' singer/guitarist Travis Johnson chats with his mother, Susie, at SXSW.
At the Palm Door, Grooms play a set of all new songs, and it kicks ass. Unfortunately it’s an early show and not many people know to come in from the deck outside, where DJs have previously been spinning. There are fewer than 20 people listening intently in the large venue. The response, after driving all the way from Brooklyn where Grooms frequently play to full houses, is a little disheartening.
“How did it sound?” asks Travis. I tell him it sounded great, which it did, but I know it’s a small concession. It's an all too common scenario at SXSW, where bands don't quite connect with the crowds of people who would be interested if only they got a chance to hear the music.
As Grooms' members pack up, I talk to Travis' mom and aunt, Melanie, who also arrived before the show. His mom is glowing and proud. She tells me how she used to sing Travis songs by The Beatles when he was young to get him to fall asleep.

The members of Weekend tell me about distribution deals they are being approached with from major labels, agreements that would allow them to stay on their indie label, Slumberland, while having the big money and reach of a major. I’m suspicious of deals that sound too good to be true, but I’m glad they’re getting serious interest.
Shaun’s bloody hand after Weekend’s show at the Longbranch Inn.
It’s hard to imagine a more storybook SXSW experience: An unestablished band flies into town to pack 10 venues for 10 shows at the world’s biggest music conference. They meet with major labels, stay in a hotel with a nice rental car and get lavished with gifts. The Weekend guys are smart enough to be uneasy by the potential pitfalls of such rapid success and hope they can maintain control of their destiny. Their heads are spinning but they seem excited to hold on for the ride.
Top photo: Weekend coordinate plans with friends during a set by Veronica Falls at Beauty Bar on their second night in Austin.Shaun and Kevin walk under Interstate 35 on the way to Austin’s East Side.

The next day, Grooms play a show at the Hotel Vegas for a Brooklyn BBQ showcase. It’s a similar-size crowd but in a smaller, concrete-walled room. The shows are supposed to alternate between the inside stage where Grooms are and the outside stage, but the timing is off and the band outside, where most of the people are, start playing as soon as Grooms go on. By the time their set ends, however, Grooms has managed to attract attentive listeners from outside.
For fans like me, this is an ideal situation: Getting to see one of your favorite bands in an intimate setting before anyone else knows about them. But for the band, it’s pretty tough.
Jim, the drummer, used to play with Marnie Stern, and when they would play SXSW, the shows were packed.
“I love these guys and I love the music,” he says, but admits it’s hard to go from playing big crowds to playing in front of a handful of people at the festival.

We pack up the Grooms' van with gear in the alley as three bands play within 100 yards of each other outside, with all the competing drums creating awful phasing effects in the air. In this way, it's a blessing that Grooms had the inside stage. They would've sounded horrible out here.
After Travis and I find a parking spot where the car won't get towed, we meet up with Jim and Emily to get some Ethiopian food nearby.
Jim reads the paper by the Grooms' van after it's packed up in the alley outside Hotel Vegas. There's a lot of unglamorous waiting for bands at SXSW.
Emily has been avoiding me the whole time I’ve been taking pictures, but once I put down the camera she is smiley and friendly. At dinner she instigates a ranking of everyone’s favorite David Lynch movies. When the waiter comes by, she inquisitively asks why some of the dishes on the menu are so similar to Indian dishes she knows. The waiter either doesn’t know or doesn’t understand the question, and Emily quickly moves on to order her food.

I know Travis a bit better than Emily and Jim. I did a couple long interviews with him last year for SXSW where we talked about his brother with Asperger syndrome and his own religion-oriented neuroses.
“I pretty much had shame OCD,” he says as we walk to a bar after dinner. He says he became fixated on the judgments espoused by Christian morality and felt like he was a terrible person for almost anything he did, no matter how mundane.
“I always thought it was cool to have something really wrong with you,” he says as we walk down Sixth Street toward Lovejoys with Jim. “But once it happened to me I was like, ‘Fuck.’”
The members of Grooms grab some dinner at Karibu Ethiopian Restaurant after their Hotel Vegas show.
This leads to a complex discussion of the Jesus myth and how people often picture Jesus as someone who justifies their own way of thinking and their own ideals, based on very little actual information. A song on Grooms' new album, called “Expression Of,” was actually inspired by Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, with the lyrics: "Richard thinks he ripped a hole in me and one in you too.
Mechanistic mutilator's dream: A tome in chrome."

The band has opted to take SXSW’s cash instead of wristbands, so we’re barred from seeing most shows happening around us.
Jim eventually retires for the evening and Travis and I meet up with Emily at a bar called Shangri-La. She's hanging out with Josh Kolenik, lead singer of Brooklyn chill-wave band Small Black, who is later able to get everyone into the Mohawk to see Gayngs.
Grooms park their van on a neighborhood street on Austin's East Side while they go out for the night.
As the night gets sloshier, Gayngs cover George Michael’s "One More Try." The night is sort of fizzling out as I become too tired to stand. I slip out to eat a stomach-churning panini at a nearby food truck and can't get back into the venue to say goodbye to the band. As I walk home, George Michael is still singing in my head.
Sometimes life fits into the Fuck, Marry, Kill paradigm. Or it usually doesn't but I force it anyway. And in a game of Fuck, Marry, Kill for bands, for me I think it's fuck Weekend, marry Grooms and kill fogjuice-scented Korn.
I’m torn between wishing Grooms the success I feel they deserve and selfishly hoping they always stay a somewhat-unknown diamond in the rough. Just like a real marriage.
Top photo: Travis talks with a friend from Brooklyn at the Mohawk at 1:30 a.m. while Gayngs play.

Weekend at SXSW 2011

The three Weekend guys are in their early 20s. Shaun Durkan plays bass and sings, Kevin Johnson is on guitar and Abe Pedroza pounds the drums. Their near-constant joking is like a game of hacky sack, each one passing the joke around and adding their own spin with a certain degree of brinkmanship.
I meet them at their room at the Holiday Inn one morning and then we head downstairs to the hotel’s breakfast buffet. Shaun has ordered a Bloody Mary but is not enjoying it.
“This tastes like ketchup,” he says.
Kevin laughs, “Uh, can I get a vodka ketchup?”
“Can I get a whiskey mustard?” says Shaun, pretending to flag down the waiter.
“Tequila ranch,” says Abe.
“That sounds like some equestrian getaway,” says Shaun.
“Get swept away at Tequila Ranch,” says Abe.
Despite their generally upbeat demeanor, Shaun and Kevin tell me they were up until 5:30 a.m. the night before watching TV and tripping out about how fucked up the world is. Like many jokers, they give the impression of a darker, more contemplative side that few get to see. They are easy to like but, I suspect, difficult to really get to know.
Somehow they get onto the topic of smells and how the worse you smell, the more successful your band is.
“Korn probably smelled like fogjuice and crystal meth,” says Kevin.
“And shell toes,” says Shaun. “Fat laces.”
In the restaurant, a group of young women, all athletic and similar-looking, are also eating breakfast. Apparently there is a female rowing competition in the area. Kevin seizes the opportunity for some provocative sparring.
“Rowing girls are not hot,” he says, joking, as we leave the restaurant.
“Broadest backs,” says Shaun.
“Buffest arms,” says Abe.
“A bunch of shaved gorillas,” says Kevin, victoriously taking it too far.
Kevin bites into a breakfast chicken sandwich that the band members agree is the highlight of the meal. “This is crazy, this little chicken sculpture thing,” says Shaun. “The chicken gobbler.”

The Cedar Street Courtyard is packed and the audience stands relatively still, at curious attention, while Weekend blasts its sonic ectoplasm from the stage. After their set, the band members walk upstairs, sweating, and retire to an artists-only balcony bar above the stage.
Inside the air-conditioned bar, Onitsuka Tiger shoes is giving away a free pair to every musician that plays. The musicians told me previously that they’ve been bombarded with free swag from Converse and Puma, but it is strange to see it in person.
“Want to be in our posse and get some shoes?” Kevin says to me under his breath.
Before I can answer, the Onitsuka lady overhears and admonishes Kevin that the shoes are for artists only. Unfazed, Kevin and Abe sit down and try on their free kicks and Shaun joins us from outside. After they pose for a promo photo with the shoes, they move on to the Spy Optic sunglasses table, where the routine begins again.
Weekend drummer Abe Pedroza takes a breather while Onitsuka brings him his complimentary shoes.
I get the impression they are less stoked about the swag than they are curious about the music business dance, and baffled by their place in it. Shaun and Kevin are fresh out of college and are making moves to build the band as a career, so it is more a feeling of rolling up their sleeves to get their hands dirty than an ecstatic embrace of material bonuses. Having seen their SXSW shows last year, where maybe a dozen people watched them play the parking lot of a restaurant, it’s hard not to be happy for them.

The banter only stops when Weekend's members pack up their rental car and start blasting “Who Let the Dogs Out?” by Baha Men. The track is on a mix CD that Shaun’s younger sister made for her soccer team’s pool party. Kevin cranks the stereo to booming levels, with everyone bobbing their heads and pumping their hands. From Baha Men we move to “Walking on Sunshine,” by Katrina and the Waves, to “All Star” by Smash Mouth and finally back to Baha Men for an encore.
This all happens while sitting in stop-and-go traffic in downtown Austin with Kevin behind the wheel checking Twitter at the stops.
“The Klaxons cancelled their tour,” he reports.
Lugging his gear between the car and the venue, Kevin stops as two girls walk past. “Hey!” he says and starts to point as one of the girls turns around.
“Are you the Weekend?” she says. She’s wearing a 49ers baseball cap and starts to take it off. Then she hands it to Kevin, laughing sheepishly. Kevin laughs out loud and runs up to Abe to hand him the cap. Apparently someone (probably that girl) had stolen the hat from their show the day before and it was one of Abe’s favorites.
When we arrive at the venue, the bandmates start setting up their gear, using the backlined amps and drums that are already there. Something’s wrong with Shaun’s bass rig and no sound is coming out. The woman running sound, who looks like she could be one of the band members' mothers, doesn’t inspire much confidence. Shaun is polite but is getting impatient as the sun bakes his Bloody Mary into his brain. Finally, the stage manager helps out and, after five minutes or so, the bass booms into existence.
“We should do this more often!” says the soundwoman, pleased.

AUSTIN, Texas — Not all South by Southwest band experiences are created equal. Some groups unleash their music on writhing crowds of adoring fans, while others play to bartenders in empty rooms.
With thousands of musicians converging on Austin for the five-day blowout, most SXSW sets fall somewhere in between.
I followed two bands — Grooms from Brooklyn, New York, and Weekend from San Francisco — at this year's event to see what their experiences were like and get some insight into what happens behind the scenes at the giant annual music festival here.
Grooms have just finished their sophomore album, Prom, and are waiting for it to be released this summer on Kanine Records.
Listen to "Dreamsucker" by Grooms:<audio controls=""><source src="http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2011/03/01-Dreamsucker.ogg" type="audio/ogg"></source><source src="http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2011/03/01-Dreamsucker.mp3" type="audio/mp3"></source>[dewplayer:http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2011/03/01-Dreamsucker.mp3]</audio>
They gave me a low-bitrate MP3 version to listen to last week and I’ve been playing it nonstop. We share a lot of formative favorite records from the mid-'90s, and the band has matured those influences into weird and wonderful guitar-driven rock.
The band's previous record, Rejoicer, was also a favorite of mine and some other reviewers, but it didn’t quite break Grooms into the buzz-band in-crowd. Now, the group's members hope for a more favorable review from the indie-rock kingmakers over at Pitchfork (Rejoicer received a 6.4).
Kevin Johnson (left) and Shaun Durkan of Weekend thrash out their sonic assault at the Cedar Street Courtyard during SXSW.
In contrast, San Francisco's Weekend are riding the wave of a recent 8.2 in Pitchfork for debut LP Sports and enjoying an enormous amount of buzz. The band's shoegaze-punk fusion is an existential scream, blending anguish and beauty until their difference becomes meaningless. For a certain level of indie success, they are the right guys making the right sounds at the right time.
Listen to "Coma Summer" by Weekend:<audio controls=""><source src="http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2011/03/01-Coma-Summer.ogg" type="audio/ogg"></source><source src="http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2011/03/01-Coma-Summer.mp3" type="audio/mp3"></source>[dewplayer:http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2011/03/01-Coma-Summer.mp3]</audio>
Technically these two bands have nothing to do with each other, aside from both agreeing to let me follow them at SXSW, but their stories triangulate a clearer view of the conference and its various ups and downs.
Read on for a behind-the-scenes look at SXSW Music from the view of the bands that play there.
Top photo: Grooms' Emily Ambruso (left) plays bass and Jim Sykes plays drums at the Palm Door during SXSW.